In the first year of Belshazzar king of Babylon, Daniel saw a dream and visions of his head upon his bed then he wrote the dream; he told the sum of the matters.
A date, a dream, and a written record — that is all the first verse gives us, yet it marks the hinge of the whole book of Daniel. From here on, the visions come to the prophet, not to a king. They answer one question: what does God think of the world's great powers?
Commentators read Daniel as two halves, and this verse opens the second. The difference is not in date but in who receives the revelation.
The book of Daniel divides by its very nature into two nearly equal parts. The first six chapters may be regarded as the first volume, the last six as the second. This division rests on the contents of the book. The early chapters consist of visions which the Gentile king saw. They also record moral events that happened to one or another of the kings of Babylon. These vindicated God's mind and His sure judgment. The last half of the book gives visions which the prophet saw. So there is a marked difference between the two portions, even when they treat the same subject. We see this clearly by comparing the seventh chapter with the second. They cover exactly the same ground, but in a different way. The earlier of the two gives the public history of the world, made known to the first man whom the God of heaven made ruler over all mankind, and over the lower creation as well. In chapter 7 that history comes to a saint, with details about the Lord and the saints at the end of the age.
Chapter 5 has already told of Belshazzar's last night. Now we are taken back to his first year, which means the chapter is placed by subject, not by sequence.
The first part shows the history of the world in its outward character, its visible forms, and the question raised between those powers and God. The second part — as you would expect in revelations given to a prophet who stands as the representative of the people of God — reveals the position and character of the players in relation to the saints, their full moral character, and all that inner history in which those saints were most concerned.
Verse 1 steps back in time, and it finds Daniel out of office.
In Daniel 5 we had the record of the last year — indeed the last hours — of Belshazzar's kingship. As we open chapter 7, we are carried back to the first year of his reign. At this time Daniel had sunk into complete obscurity, as chapter 5 shows. He had lost touch with worldly fame, but by a dream he was still in touch with heaven.
Isaiah and Jeremiah carried God's message to the nation. Daniel does not; his people are in exile, and what he receives he writes down.
The prophecies of Daniel are unlike any other prophecies in the Old Testament. The reason is that they are not addressed directly to God's people. During the captivity the Jews are no longer publicly recognised as the people of God. So any communications God makes are not addressed to them, but to Daniel personally. Even so, we read that Daniel "wrote down the dream and told the sum of the matter." So these visions unfold the future of the world. They stand on record for the guidance of God's people in all ages.
One other man received visions while shut out of public life:
With the prophets generally, the word of the Lord came to them, or they spoke as moved by the Holy Spirit. It was not so with Daniel. Instead, he "saw a dream and visions of his head as he lay in his bed." In fact he was not a messenger to God's people, as Isaiah and Jeremiah were. Like John on Patmos, he received revelations of the future for the guidance of God's people in all ages.
The "sum of the matter" is not one picture but several.
We say the first vision, though in fact three visions are given here. They begin at verses 2, 7 and 13. Besides these, the interpretation is found in verses 17-27, in answer to his question. The aim of the chapter seems to be the fourth Gentile empire. It shows that empire's judgment, and its replacement by the kingdom of the Son of Man.
In the dream the world's great empires appear as animals.
It may be asked, why should these powers be pictured as wild beasts? By this God would show us their moral character as it appears in His sight. The beast lives by force, and to satisfy its appetites, with no sense of responsibility toward God. In the same way the Gentile powers have been marked by greed for conquest and lust for power and glory. God has not been in all their thoughts.
- Turn — Chapter 7 opens the book's second half. The dreams no longer come to kings. The visions come to the prophet, over the same ground as chapter 2, seen from a different side.
- Timing — The date takes us back to Belshazzar's first year, before the events of chapter 5. Daniel had dropped out of public sight, yet he was still in touch with heaven.
- Recipient — The nation is in captivity and no longer owned in public as God's people. So the revelation comes to Daniel himself.
- Record — He wrote the dream down. What one forgotten man received became guidance for God's people in every age.
- Target — The three visions drive at the fourth empire, its judgment, and the kingdom of the Son of Man that replaces it. The powers appear as beasts because that is their moral character in God's sight.
Daniel spoke and said, I saw in my vision by night, and behold, the four winds of the heavens broke forth upon the great sea.
Daniel's night vision opens with a storm: four winds tearing at a great sea. Before a single empire appears, two questions press — what is this sea, and who stirs it?
In prophecy, water stands for people, not geography. One writer contrasts the sea with a second image — the earth:
In prophetic language the great sea always means masses of people. So Babylon sits "on many waters" (Revelation 17:1, 15; Jeremiah 51:13). These are people who at the time of the vision were not yet formed into kingdoms and empires, and so were not yet acknowledged by God as objects of prophecy. Those settled powers are rather called the earth.
Commentators differ on where the disturbance comes from. Some read the winds as God's agents in providence:
The winds are different disturbing influences. God orders them in providence, and in judgment, to carry out His purposes in governing the earth. So in Revelation 7 angels hold back the four winds of the earth from their work of judgment. They wait until God has sealed His servants on their foreheads. There they are the winds of earth, because the earth was what they were sent to strike. In Daniel they are the winds of heaven, showing the source they were sent from.
Others read the wind as Satan's power at work:
"Wind" often represents the power of Satan, for he is "the prince of the power of the air" (Ephesians 2:2). What Daniel saw was a picture of the forces of darkness working on the masses of mankind. As we shall see, this produced the four world-empires that fill up the times of the Gentiles. Israel is the only nation God has raised up to a place of supremacy. But while Israel is set aside, four world powers arise. They come from the striving of satanic forces, and not from the working of God's power.
Commentators differ. Some take it as a real body of water:
"The great sea" is the name given to the Mediterranean. That sea is completely surrounded by the countries that make up the prophetic earth. The four beasts rising out of the sea answer to the four parts of the image in Nebuchadnezzar's dream. Nebuchadnezzar had the outward course of the great world-empires unfolded to him, while Daniel had their inner character revealed to him.
Others answer from the Hebrew wording:
The words used in Daniel for the great sea are not at all the same as "the Great Sea" when the Mediterranean is meant. I do not believe the expression is ever used of the Mediterranean. Daniel uses a Hebrew word meaning, I think, a multitude of waters. In this general sense it stands without the article — the four winds of heaven striving upon great waters. "The Great Sea" is used with the article.
One writer takes up an apparent clash inside the chapter:
The four kings of verse 17 arise out of the earth. There is no contradiction at all between that and verse 2, where they came up from the sea. They are said to rise from the sea because the sea represents a mass of men in a state of political anarchy. It is out of this troubled state of peoples that empires arise. Take the French Empire, for example. A revolution broke up the old system of government. Then followed a state of confusion, like the sea torn by the winds, and out of it all an empire emerged... The force of the sea was simply to show that they grew out of a previously troubled state of society. Such was their providential origin. But their moral origin is looked at as purely earthly, in contrast with the Son of man, who comes in the clouds of heaven.
Another prophet saw four chariots. One writer explains them:
The chariots are presented as "the four spirits of the heavens, which go out from standing before the Lord of all the earth" (compare Daniel 7:2). God is showing us that His providence directed the course of these warring powers from the very beginning. To all appearances each power did whatever it wanted, following its own ways without taking account of God. In reality He stood behind the scenes. The four spirits of the heavens stood before His face, to lead the empires along the paths He wanted them to take.
- Sea — In prophecy, water is people: crowds not yet organised into kingdoms. Prophecy calls settled, governed nations "the earth."
- Wind — The stirring force. Some writers read it as God's providence in judgment. Others read it as satanic power at work on the crowds.
- Storm — Empires are not born in calm. Revolution and confusion come first, and out of the churning a world power rises.
- Wording — Writers differ over whether "the great sea" is the Mediterranean. One argument from the Hebrew: Daniel's phrase means a multitude of waters.
- Steering — The powers looked like they were following their own will. Behind the scenes God directed every one of them where He meant them to go.
And four great beasts came up from the sea, different one from another.
Daniel's night vision covers the same ground as Nebuchadnezzar's dream of the great statue, but from another angle. Four beasts rise out of a stormy sea, and that raises two questions: what the sea stands for, and why the empires look like animals instead of a man.
The sea is not water but people — crowds with no settled government. One writer points to modern history:
The sea represents a mass of men in a state of political anarchy. It is out of this troubled state of peoples that empires arise. Take the French Empire for example. A revolution broke up the old system of government. Then followed a state of confusion, like the sea torn with the winds, and out of it all emerged an empire. From such a state of things in the world the four great empires arose.
None of it is literal, and the same picture appears elsewhere in Scripture:
These are not actual beasts nor an actual sea, but four great world empires that have their origin in the nations. Also we have a similar thought expressed in Revelation 13:1, where we read of a beast rising up out of the sea.
Later in the chapter the interpretation says these four kings "arise out of the earth" (v. 17), not out of the sea. The two statements answer different questions:
In the vision they rise out of the sea; in the interpretation they rise from the earth. The vision shows their providential or political origin; the interpretation shows their moral origin. In God's providence they rise in a time of political upheaval. Morally they are earthly, unlike the kingdom of the Son of Man, who comes from heaven.
The empires that looked like a splendid human figure to a pagan king look like animals to a prophet. The chapters in between explain the change:
The four beasts of Daniel's vision match, as everyone knows, the one human figure that the king of Babylon saw. In his eyes it at least looks like a man, though it has no breath and no life. To the prophet later, on the other hand, the world empires are full of life — but the life is that of an animal. One of the chapters in between links the two. In the fourth chapter Nebuchadnezzar is himself driven out among the beasts, as a corrective punishment, until he knows "that the Most High rules in the kingdom of men." In a pride that has forgotten God, he has become nothing but a beast, which knows no God.
Calling a government a beast is a verdict on its character, not an insult:
Why does God picture these powers as wild beasts? He does it to show us their moral character as He sees it. A beast lives by force, and to satisfy its appetites, with no sense of responsibility to God. In the same way the Gentile powers have been marked by greed for conquest and a craving for power and glory. God has not been in all their thoughts. It is striking that these powers have willingly taken the character of a wild beast, perhaps without knowing they were fulfilling God's Word. Is it not a fact that many have chosen wild beasts or birds of prey as their national symbols? Look at the lion of England and the eagle of the United States.
The four are not interchangeable. Writers identify them as the same succession pictured in the statue:
Nebuchadnezzar's vision unfolded the outward course of the great world empires, while Daniel's vision revealed their inner character. Lion — the Babylonian Empire. Bear — the Medo-Persian Empire. Leopard — the Greek Empire. Fourth beast — the Roman Empire.
Their differences trace a direction of travel:
Here these same empires appear in a form that shows how each one sinks lower morally in the sight of God. Cruelty, selfishness and greed, with no recognition or knowledge of God, mark the beast. These are the solemn features of the world empires through the times of the Gentiles, until the dominion of Christ is established.
Commentators differ over "the great sea." Some take it as the Mediterranean. One writer disagrees:
I do not believe the expression is ever used of the Mediterranean. Daniel uses a Hebrew word (Rab) meaning a multitude of waters, and he uses it with no article; "the Great Sea" is used with the article. It is quite clear that the passage in Daniel speaks of the origin of these empires from a sea of peoples with no settled shape.
- Sea — the restless, ungoverned mass of peoples. Empires come out of political chaos, as one came out of revolution in France.
- Rise — the vision gives their providential origin, out of the sea; the interpretation gives their moral origin, out of the earth. The Son of Man, by contrast, comes from heaven.
- Beast — what looked like a splendid man to Nebuchadnezzar looks like an animal to God. The king who forgot God was himself driven out among the beasts.
- Character — a beast lives by force and appetite, with no sense of responsibility to God. Nations have taken lions and eagles as their own emblems.
- Different — lion, bear, leopard and the fourth beast trace a moral slide downward in the times of the Gentiles. It ends when Christ's dominion is established.
The first was like a lion, and had eagle's wings I beheld till its wings were plucked; and it was lifted up from the earth, and made to stand upon two feet as a man, and a man's heart was given to it.
Daniel's night vision covers the same four world powers as the great statue of chapter 2. But the picture has changed. What a king saw as a splendid image now rises out of a stormy sea as wild animals. The first of them is Babylon at its peak, and this verse shows God taking that peak away.
The two visions show the same empires from two different sides:
In the vision of the image, these empires were shown as impressive but declining powers, as men see them. Here the same empires are shown in a form that expresses their moral decline, one after another, as God sees them. Cruelty, selfishness and greed, with no recognition or knowledge of God, mark the beast. These are the solemn features of the world empires through the times of the Gentiles, until Christ's rule is set up.
The two creatures joined in this one symbol were not new language for Babylon. Earlier prophets had already used both:
"The first was like a lion and had eagles' wings." Here, beyond question, we have the empire of Babylon. It is nothing new for the Holy Spirit to apply the figure of a lion to Nebuchadnezzar, or of an eagle either. Jeremiah has already used both, and names him as both the lion and the eagle in Jer. 49:19-22. Ezekiel pictured him as an eagle too. In Daniel's vision the Holy Spirit combines the two figures in one symbol, to give a fitting picture of what the Babylonian empire was in the mind of God.
Together they say two things: the lion stands for majesty, and the wings for "swift marching and conquest, which marked the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar above all" (Edward Dennett).
Babylon did not seize the top place. God gave it, and gave it on terms:
This was the power to which God gave dominion after He set Israel and the house of David aside. Remarkably, while God still owned Israel, He let no power rise to the top place on earth. Both Egypt and Assyria wanted that place and fought for it, but neither one won it. When the time came for David's throne to be overthrown, God let the rising power of Babylon conquer both of those older empires, and so it became supreme among the nations. Keeping that place depended on faithfulness to the trust given by Him who rules in the kingdom of men and gives it to whomever He will. Babylon proved unfaithful, and so God set it aside.
Daniel then watches the beast change. Every part of the change speaks of loss:
The wings of the beast were plucked. It lost the swift action that had marked it out, and this shows what the empire became in the hands of Nebuchadnezzar's weak successors. The beast also lost its own natural posture. It was made to stand up like a man and was given the heart of a man — pictures of the weak state to which Babylon sank in the end. For if a lion is made to stand up, and its whole nature is changed, it has lost both its power and its grandeur.
Babylon itself was not wiped out. It was demoted: "remained a great city after its dominion was taken away… it became a province, and was no longer mistress of the world" (J. N. Darby).
Where the ESV reads "the mind of a man was given to it," older translations say "a man's heart." Commentators work from that older wording, and they link it back to Nebuchadnezzar himself:
In keeping with this, "a man's heart was given to it." There may be a contrast here with what was done to Nebuchadnezzar himself, who was given a beast's heart. The proud king was not looking up to God, which is the plain duty of every soul. A man who does not recognize the God who made him is not truly a man… In Nebuchadnezzar's case, man was taken up with himself. Satan twisted the very gift of worldwide rule that God had given him, so that self, and not God, became the object of his thoughts.
The two hearts differ in direction: "Man's heart looks upwards to God; a beast's heart looks down and ravages others" (J. N. Darby).
- Given. Babylon rose only when God set David's throne aside. It held that power on trust from the God who gives kingdoms to whomever He will.
- Grandeur. Earlier prophets pictured Babylon as a lion and as an eagle. Daniel's vision joins the two: majesty plus the speed of its conquests.
- God's view. What dazzles men as a golden image looks to God like wild beasts: power that will not recognize Him.
- Stripped. Plucked wings, an upright stance, a man's heart — all say one thing. The swift conquering stops, and the empire sinks into weakness.
- Lesson. Nebuchadnezzar looked down at himself instead of up to God, so God gave him a beast's heart. A man's heart is the heart that owns One above it.
And behold, another beast, a second, like unto a bear, and it raised up itself on one side; and [it had] three ribs in its mouth between its teeth; and they said thus unto it Arise, devour much flesh.
Daniel watched four beasts rise out of a storm-tossed sea. The second one pictures an empire he would soon live under, and every detail counts: the lopsided stance, the ribs clenched in its teeth, the order given to it.
God showed these empires to His prophet as wild animals. One commentator explains what that picture says about them.
Some may ask, "Why are they shown as wild beasts?" We learn in this figure their moral character in the eyes of God. Beasts live to satisfy their appetites, with no sense of responsibility towards God. The figure is a true one. Neither Babylon nor Persia nor the rest ruled for God. Love of power and greed of conquest marked every one of them, some more and some less.
The bear's identity is not guesswork. Scripture names the kingdom it followed and the kingdom that came after it.
Just as plainly, if the first beast stands for Babylon, the second stands for Persia — or rather for the Medo-Persian kingdom. Daniel 5 tells us in so many words that this kingdom followed Babylon, and Daniel 8 tells us it came before Greece. History says the same, as everyone knows. The symbol of a bear shows its ferocious character.
The choice of animal is itself a comment on the empire. Compared with the lion of verse 4, the bear is heavy and clumsy.
The three ribs in its mouth show the bear's ferocity plainly. But it has none of the lion's majesty, energy, or dash. It is clumsier and more awkward in its movements, yet marked by endless conquest and greed.
A bear standing higher on one side is a strange picture until you know that two peoples made up this empire. Which of them would rule was not the obvious answer.
It was an empire not so uniform as the Babylonian. It consisted of two peoples joined under one head. Another remarkable feature is this: it was the inferior of the two kingdoms that prevailed. The Persian takes the upper hand of the Mede. So in Daniel 5 we saw that Darius the Mede took the kingdom. But Cyrus soon followed. From then on it was always the Persian who governed, not the Mede.
A later vision in Daniel 8 pictures the same empire as a ram. It repeats the same uneven detail.
Its one-sidedness shows us how exact the Spirit of God is in the details of Scripture. The next chapter pictures the same empire as a ram with two horns. There we learn that "one was higher than the other, and the higher one came up last" (Daniel 8:3). This points to a power with two branches, and to a leading branch — the Persian — that was the younger. So the Spirit of God takes notice of a simple and well-known historical fact.
Commentators differ on the ribs. Some take them as a picture of appetite — the beast caught mid-meal.
Imagine a panorama of different beasts, with one animal painted holding a heap of prey and eating it. At once we would think of a huge appetite. That was the case with the Persians. They faced frequent revolts, because of their extortion and cruelty.
Others count them as three conquests: "The three ribs stand for the conquest of three provinces by this power." Arno Clemens Gaebelein
Persia's own history bears the order out, kindness to the Jews included.
Cyrus the Persian became favourable to the Jews, as the opening verses of Ezra show. Apart from this, its power was not tolerant. The words "Arise, devour much flesh" came true in its history.
The size of the finished empire shows how far that order went. Its territory "included what is now known as Turkey in Asia, Persia, Afghanistan and Baluchistan, as far as the river Indus, with a good portion of Egypt. In the words of Scripture, it had 'devoured much flesh.'" Morrish Bible Dictionary
- Beast — God sees this empire as a wild animal: strength with no sense of responsibility toward Him.
- Bear — the symbol is Medo-Persia. Daniel 5 shows it followed Babylon; Daniel 8 shows it came before Greece. It is heavy and greedy, not majestic like the lion.
- Balance — "raised up on one side" marks an empire of two peoples. The younger branch, Persia, came to rule. The ram of Daniel 8 says the same again.
- Bite — the ribs show an empire caught in the act of feeding. Commentators differ: some see plain greed, others three conquered provinces.
- Bidding — Persia obeyed the order to the letter, from the Indus to Egypt. Such exact detail shows the care of the Spirit of God in Scripture.
After this I saw, and behold, another, like a leopard, and it had four wings of a bird upon its back; and the beast had four heads; and dominion was given to it.
Daniel's night vision moves on to a third creature: a leopard with wings and four heads, whose rule was handed to it. Three questions follow — which empire is this, why these odd features, and who gave it power?
The book supplies its own key: a later vision in Daniel names the kingdom outright.
The third beast was like a leopard, having on its back four wings of a bird. We need not go outside the book of Daniel for the interpretation of this. Daniel 8:21 lets us know that it was the Grecian Power that destroyed the Medo-Persian Empire. The leopard is fast in its movements by nature; the wings added in the vision speak of extraordinary speed. Most people know that Alexander led his forces against Persia to avenge Xerxes' invasion of Greece (Daniel 11:2). In about twelve years he conquered almost the whole known world.
No such animal has ever walked the earth. God borrows its features from real creatures.
There was nothing in nature like this leopard. God takes features from different things that did exist in nature and combines them to give an idea of this new empire. The leopard is known for its agility in chasing its prey. Yet, to give something beyond nature, we hear that it had "on its back four wings of a bird." If headlong courage in pursuing great plans was ever joined with speed in winning one conquest after another, we find it in the history of Alexander the Great.
More wings do not mean more glory here. The bird they belong to, and the number of heads, both point downward.
The third beast does not lack speed in action, for it has on its back four wings of a bird. But its flight is not the lofty, magnificent flight of the eagle; it is that of a much lower bird. It has, however, four wings instead of two. It has also four heads; absolute authority was not held by one head only. To it dominion was given.
The four heads do not describe the empire at its founding. They describe what it became after Alexander died — the stage that mattered most for the Jews.
This is without doubt the empire of Alexander. The vision describes this beast more by what it became after Alexander died, when his empire split into four parts, than by what it was while he held it together. This matters, because two of those parts had much more to do with the Jews than the empire had in Alexander's own time. Two of these are afterwards called (chapter 11) the king of the north and the king of the south.
Later chapters in Daniel identify these four by name.
Daniel tells us also that the leopard had four heads. As Daniel 8:8-22 and 11:4 tell us, these are the four military leaders — not descendants of Alexander — who divided his dominions among themselves after his death. Their names were Seleucus, Ptolemy, Cassander, and Lysimachus.
The verse does not say the beast seized rule. It says rule was given — and a giver stands behind it.
Whatever the nature and character of these beasts, God ordained them as truly as He ordained David, the King of Israel, the man anointed with the holy oil. Driven by their own self-will and greed, they devoured countries, conquered kingdoms, and took thrones. But behind all that man could see, the hand of God was working out His wise designs. Neither they nor their armies could go one inch beyond what He permitted. … Neither man nor the devil has power to do anything apart from God's permission. What a comfort this truth is to our cowardly souls!
The earlier vision showed these empires as an image. Here they appear as wild animals, and the change of picture is a change of viewpoint.
The vision of the image showed these empires as imposing but declining powers in the sight of men. Here the same empires appear in a form that shows their step-by-step moral decline in the sight of God. Cruelty, selfishness and greed, with no recognition or knowledge of God, mark the beast. These are the solemn features of the world empires through the times of the Gentiles, until the dominion of Christ is established.
- Given, not grabbed. "Dominion was given to it" is the hinge of the verse. Empires rise by permission, and none moves an inch past what God allows.
- Given speed. Leopard plus wings is a picture built beyond nature. It joins agility to headlong conquest — Alexander's sweep across the known world in twelve years.
- Given lesser glory. Four wings of a common bird, not the eagle's flight; four heads, not one ruler — more spread, less majesty.
- Given a future. The four heads show the empire after Alexander's death — four generals divided it, and two of their parts became the kings of the north and south.
- Given for a time. Seen from God's side these powers are beasts: conquest without conscience. Their day runs only until the dominion of Christ is established.
After this I saw in the night visions, and behold, a fourth beast, dreadful and terrible, and exceeding strong; and it had great iron teeth it devoured and broke in pieces, and stamped the rest with its feet; and it was different from all the beasts that were before it; and it had ten horns.
Daniel has already watched three beasts rise out of the sea, and he could name each one — a lion, a bear, a leopard. The fourth breaks that pattern. No animal fits it, and it carries ten horns.
This beast has no animal to stand for it. Commentators say the vision leaves it nameless on purpose.
The fourth beast speaks mostly of events still to come. It matters so much that Daniel receives further details in a second vision. Nothing in nature can compare to this beast. It stands there on purpose as an unnatural monster, filling the one who sees it with dread and terror.
The same four empires appear twice in Daniel. In chapter 2 a king sees a great statue. Here a prophet sees wild animals. What changed is not the empires but who is looking.
When the four empires were shown in symbol to the Gentile king, they had their worldly aspect. There was the likeness of a great image, majestic in its proportions, made of the most costly, lasting, and useful of metals... Here is the world's estimate of imperial power and successful ambition, and the world bows down and worships. But the saint sees these same empires in symbol as unclean and terrifying beasts: greedy for blood, fierce, untameable. The last one went so far beyond the rest in those qualities that no animal known to man could set out its character. So a strange monster, a terror of nature, stood before the prophet's eye to picture the fourth empire. This gives us God's judgement about these empires, and shows what value His saints should put on their splendour and power.
The beast eats and it tramples. Writers apply both actions to Rome.
No doubt the Roman empire had all these awful features, bringing dread and terror to all who opposed it or attracted its greed; taking whatever served its purpose, and destroying what it could not use.
What the beast did not swallow, it stamped on. One writer spells out what that meant on the map.
It devoured and broke in pieces, and it stamped on what was left with its feet. That is to say, it took over the territories of previous empires and absorbed them into its own — not all of each empire, but its most important parts.
The verse says this beast was different from every beast before it. One writer finds that difference inside its own government.
It was an empire that kept a strong sense of the will of man — of the people. It combined certain republican elements with as iron a despotism as ever ruled in this world. These two things were brought into distinct, but seemingly harmonious, play.
Daniel sees the ten horns the moment the beast appears. One writer explains why the vision does not run in historical order.
We are not to look for the actual development of history in this vision. If we did, the ten horns would clearly not have been seen on the Roman beast when it first met the eyes of the prophet. The Spirit of God brings into the very first view the features that would be found at the close, and not at the beginning.
The verse ends with ten horns. One writer asks a plain historical question about them.
The last clause of verse 7 needs careful attention — "it had ten horns." Verse 24 tells us that these are ten kings. That raises an important question. When was anything of this kind seen in the Roman Empire of the past? For a long period it had only one head. Then for a considerable time three or four rulers held power together. But anything like what we have before us here has never yet been seen. What, then, are we to understand from the statements of our chapter? Just this: that the history of the Roman Empire is not finished, for no word of God can fall to the ground. So between the two last clauses of verse 7 there is a gap of many hundreds of years. That is not at all unusual in the prophetic Word.
What fills that gap? Writers point to the same empire in a future form.
Here it is enough to note that the ten horns clearly take us on to the future. Then the Roman Empire will be revived in a ten-kingdom form under one head (see Rev. 13:1; Rev. 17:12).
- Unnamed — no creature in nature fits the fourth beast. Daniel sees a monster instead of an animal, and it fills him with dread.
- Unmasked — the statue of Daniel 2 shows how the world admires empire. The beasts of Daniel 7 show how God sees it. His saints are to value it as He does.
- Unsparing — iron teeth take the best of earlier empires, and the feet trample the rest.
- Unlike — one government held the will of the people and an iron despotism together at once.
- Unfinished — Rome never had ten kings at once. So a gap of centuries stands inside verse 7, waiting for a revived empire of ten kingdoms under one head.
I considered the horns, and behold, there came up among them another, a little horn, before which three of the first horns were plucked up by the roots; and behold, in this horn were eyes like the eyes of a man, and a mouth speaking great things.
Daniel watches the ten horns of the fourth beast. As he looks, an eleventh horn pushes up and tears out three of them — and this one has human eyes and a voice.
The word "little" is not decoration. It marks the starting point of a career, not its finish.
Here we have divine ground to know that the "little horn" of the west will at first be a small power among the other ten, and that he only becomes great by destroying three of his contemporary powers. He becomes at last not only the possessor of these three kingdoms but the overlord of all the rest. This is the form in which he becomes emperor of the western powers.
Uprooting three kingdoms is how he opens; the other seven follow by a different route.
This eleventh horn is Satan's agent for bringing together the broken-up parts of the ancient Empire of Rome. He will begin by conquering three of the European kingdoms. Then cunning or force will draw seven others to join with these in a general confederacy. Each kingdom will keep its own ruler, but all will acknowledge the supreme leadership of the little horn.
Horns picture force. The eyes point to something else.
The little horn is marked by immense intelligence — not by brute force. The description of it contrasts with that of the Lord, the Lamb who was slain. He has seven horns and seven eyes — that is, the perfection of intelligence and of power. In this case it is not so. The power outwardly looks much greater. It has ten horns instead of seven — a monster instead of perfection. The result is a kind of grotesque exaggeration of the power and wisdom of Christ, which wretched man, energised by Satan, will claim for himself.
This horn is more than a violent conqueror. His words have consequences.
This description is not simply that of a power driven into action by its passions, nor of a conqueror who goes about ravaging everywhere. There was something more in the ways of this little horn: extreme arrogance, intelligence, design, planning, reflection. He had eyes like the eyes of a man… He also had "a mouth speaking great things," that is, enormous boasting. This particularly marks this horn. It is because of the words this horn spoke that the beast was destroyed. He is the one who brings on the judgment of the fourth beast. The little horn is the one who morally influences the beast.
Some read the horns as systems or governments rather than real people. The verse points the other way.
But the great words of the horn bring judgment down upon the beast, and this assures us all the more of the horn's personality. A "political system" is not a responsible agent; for that you need a living being. We could not think of ten political systems where an eleventh subdued three of them, as is said of the "horn." If a real king is meant, nothing is more natural. A king is the meaning of both "horn" and "head," and that should be simple enough to need no further explanation.
Many readers have applied this horn to the pope. One commentator grants the likeness, then applies a simple test.
The pope has never gained three of the ten kingdoms… All its weight has come instead from its spiritual deception over the souls of men. Clearly, then, a power, small in its beginnings, is to rise and put down three of these greater powers, taking over all their dominion. The pope has never done any such thing. So although there has been a measure of likeness, there is enough difference to make the distinction quite plain.
He does not dismiss that older reading completely:
I gather from that, not that this has no bearing upon the papacy, but that its full fulfilment is in the future.
- Small — he begins as the least of eleven horns; smallness at the start says nothing about where a man will end.
- Seizing — he tears three kingdoms up by the roots, and the other seven then fall in behind him.
- Seeing — the human eyes mark intelligence, not brute force. It is a twisted copy of the wisdom and power that belong to the Lamb.
- Speaking — his boasting is what defines him, and what draws down judgment on the whole beast he leads.
- Someone — a system cannot answer for anything; the horn is a real king. And no past figure fits, since no pope ever subdued three kingdoms.